Conquerors
God enjoys demonstrating His power through the perseverance of his children. When Christians use the trials they face as a means of becoming a better person and avoid becoming resentful, they provide credibility to the value of genuine faith in God. Furthermore, trials help us to forsake our self-sufficient mentality to rely upon the sustaining power of God’s love.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. (Romans 8:35,37)
God often uses life’s troubling circumstances as a means to convince people of their need to live dependently upon Him. People who live comfortable lives are less likely to find themselves in need of God’s power and provision. They reason to think that they can do just fine without God. Some people live their entire lives under this false premise and die never recognizing their spiritual need for forgiveness of sins.
This may explain why Jesus declared the poor, the hungry, the downcast, the hated, excluded and reviled people on this earth as “blessed” while those who are rich, have a full stomach, laugh through life and are respected by men as cursed. (Luke 6:20-26) It’s not that a person cannot have a “good life” and still be godly; it’s that oftentimes the “good life” blinds a person of their need for God. “Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. (1 Timothy 6:17)
Hardship does not guarantee that a person will seek refuge in God. There are indeed some who turn from God in hardship blaming Him for their predicament. It is ultimately a matter of the heart. Like nothing else in life, trials can quickly break the fallow ground of an impenitent heart or cause one to harden their heart and become calloused toward God. Trials can both build one’s trust in God or destroy it completely.
When we seek God as a refuge and strength in our times of trial, we are sustained by His love and grace. We become conquerors over our circumstances. We become victors and not victims. As we wait upon the Lord our strength is renewed and we mount up with wings like eagles and soar. Through our trials we learn that God is faithful in bad times just as He is in the good times. We come to experience his sufficient grace (power) to get us through life’s challenges. In the end, we can embrace the declaration of the Apostle Paul, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13)
